Morning Summary, 8/1

Good morning.  I'm catching up on the details of the budget deal.  My opinion remains essentially the same.  It appears that the Democrats and their accomplices in the media are trying to convince everyone that they are suffering over this, but I think it is all an Oscar winning performance.  I don't buy into this at all.  Phony as a three dollar bill.

I ordered The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space yesterday.  It may seem odd that I haven't read it before, while being so gung ho on space colonization.  Basically, I ordered it in order to see how he planned to accomplish it-- from a technical point of view.

If it is just an argument for it from the political point of view, I will be a bit disappointed.  Of course, you can make political arguments until you are blue in the face, but you will never get anyone to agree politically unless you figure out how you can do this technically.  It has to fit into our capabilities, not only technically, but economically.  Otherwise, it can never get support.

People don't believe that we can do this.  But a lot of people didn't believe that we could go to the moon either.  Von Braun convinced Kennedy that we could.  In the end, that may be the way to get it done.

Update:

With respect to the debt ceiling talks, I have just skimmed through the powerpoint put out by the Speaker.  I am still suspicious.  They've only been able to get them to agree to Medicare cuts that only apply to payments to providers.  This doesn't really cut anything in the program itself.  The cuts to the military are going to be real cuts though.  Not a good deal.

I am also suspicious of the baseline being followed.  It is argued that this baseline would prevent any increases in new taxes, but how does that apply to the Bush Tax Cuts?  This amounts to an effective tax increase while at the same time claiming not to raise taxes.  It looks gimmicky to me.  I am definitely suspicious.

As a result of all this, the Democrats stand a chance to get everything they want without giving up anything at all.  To the extent that they may actually be giving up something, they still have a chance to win back the House and undo all of this.

The Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) is only a vote.  It is true that cuts will have to take place in the next round, BUT according to the outline mentioned above, or the amendment being sent to the states.  That means if the Democrats can get a favorable ( from their point of view) BBA, they may forego the cuts altogether!

This deal doesn't look good enough on several levels.   It is a nice try at subterfuge though.